I have never believed all the apocalyptic sayings attributed to Jesus were legitimate but all falsified to feed into another personal agenda of at least one of the Gospel writers, Matthew. He Has taken Spiritual teachings of Jesus and altered them and hijacked them to slot into his apocalyptic ramblings all from the book of Daniel or Revelation.
The best example is found in the Thomas Gospel where Jesus gives a personal Spiritual instruction for our own inner awakening or Spiritual enlightenment. “A person is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up full of many little fish. Among them he found one great, good fish. The wise fisherman threw all the little fish back into the sea and without hesitation he chose to keep the greatest fish. Whoever has ears let him hear.” This is correct as it perfectly matches the one great pearl and one great treasure hidden in the field of our flesh sayings. He is trying to help us find a Spiritual awakening within ourselves that will be greater than all other things we may have in this material world. Buddha called it, ‘The clear Light Mind.’ Jesus talked about the same experience by saying, ‘If your eye or mind is single your whole body will be filled with Light.”
Matthew took this very personal Spiritual instruction and I believe deliberately altered it distorting its True intention and meaning to aid his own apocalyptic agenda when He wrote it in this altered version. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind. And when it was full they drew it up to the shore and collected the good into vessels and cast the bad out.’ He immediately follows this with what I believe are his own words not the words of Jesus saying, ‘So it will be at the end of the age, the Angels will come forth and separate the wicked from amongst the righteous and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I believe this was a clever fabrication by Matthew to run his own agenda and Jewish overlays onto Jesus certainly from Daniel and possibly Revelation depending on the time Revelation was written.
We see Matthew distort another stand alone saying and Spiritual teaching of Jesus adding it to a regurgitated full on account of Daniel falsely attributed to Jesus when he takes a simple comment of Jesus and manipulates it for his own apocalyptic agenda at 24:3-39. The disciples point out to Jesus how grand the temple buildings all look. Jesus makes a very simple comment, “Not one stone here will be left standing on another.’ Matthew then takes a possible legitimate question by the disciples and clearly adds extra components to the question acting as a perfect Segway for Matthew to pour out his own apocalyptic regurgitations in the name of Jesus.
The original disciple question was most likely, ‘Tell us when these things will happen?’ Which makes perfect sense but Matthew expands the question of the disciples despite Jesus making no reference to these topics at all in His brief comment. Matthew adds, “And what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” I believe these are made up by Matthew as his Segway into his own regurgitated words about the Daniel apocalypse dialogue with Jesus as the star attraction which obviously he was very passionate about compared to the other Gospel writers.
At the end of this Daniel apocalyptic overlay put onto Jesus he hijacks another stand alone Teaching of Jesus to distort its meaning and tacks it onto his apocalyptic ramblings to tie them further to Jesus. It is the Teaching of Jesus where he says we all have two different bodies with us right now. One is flesh and one is Spiritual. At the time of death the flesh is worthless and can be food for the vultures while the body of the Spirit is taken (to be near to). I can only assume he is referring to be near to the source of their Spiritual creation the Heavenly Spiritual Creator or God the Father is His own way of describing the source.
Matthew finishes his long Daniel discourse attributing it all to Jesus by ending it with this Segway to add this distorted Spiritual teaching of Jesus as well. “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” He now adds the hijacked teaching and distorts its meaning by doing so. “There will be two men in a field, one will be taken and one will be sent forth. There will be two women grinding at a millstone, one will be taken and one will be sent forth. Therefore be alert for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.”
This is engineered by Mathew to overlay the Jewish book of Daniel and the Jewish God Yahweh onto Jesus making Him the star attraction coming on the clouds at the end of the world to judge, condemn, destroy and only save the good. A total distortion of the Spiritual Way of Love, forgiveness and Non-violence that Jesus was and taught everyone to become. Matthew is trying to have Jesus saying there are two completely different people involved and one is saved and one is condemned. But in Luke the extra saying is, “There will two in a single bed.” And the word single is very deliberate as Jesus is pointing out we all have two different bodies in the one body. One is flesh and one is Spiritual. Buddha would say one is mind and one is flesh. Both taught they are different aspects of who we all are. Also women had a small home grinding millstone stone for personal family use. It would be impossible for two women to use the small grinding millstone at the same time. I have no belief whatsoever that Jesus said any of this, Matthew added it for his won apocalyptic agenda.
Does anyone else agree with this viewpoint?
Christopher.
Thanks Robert for your reply. I personally do not believe the Mark Apocalyptic account which is virtually identical to Matthew makes any sense being in amongst his general overall dialogue about the Teachings and life of Jesus. It is completely out of place and there are no other independent supporting references to it at all as I recall throughout his entire Gospel excepting the common synoptic saying attributed to Jesus when being questioned by the Jewish authorities that He will be seen coming with the clouds of Heaven. Whereas Matthew draws heavily on the Old Jewish Testament whenever he can to establish Jesus as the promised Messiah and the Son of Man coming on the clouds in Daniel.
We know Matthew and Luke drew from Mark and it seems quite plausible to me that if Matthew got to it first then after Matthew finished using it as a reference he simply cut and pasted his own apocalyptic regurgitation of Daniel into Mark to add plausibility to his own fabricated apocalyptic agenda. Luke then just adapted it also into his Gospel account. It simple does not fit in with the main discourse of Mark about the life and Teachings of Jesus.
John’s Gospel clearly also makes virtually no reference at all to an apocalyptic Jesus saying He is coming back on the clouds of Heaven at some final apocalyptic day of judgement. This would make Mark, if we agree the apocalyptic Matthew overlay is an addition, Thomas and John all line up with each other in not recording anything about Jesus saying He is the Son of Man in Daniel coming on the clouds in an apocalyptic destruction that He unleashes on the world after opening some fabled seals in Heaven.
Since Matthew and Marks apocalyptic accounts are identical we have to see them as just one reference. That only leaves Luke’s apocalyptic accounts that do have variations but are essentially reiterating most of Matthew’s apocalyptic accounts. And even on that objective level it would see a 50/50 balance with two against Jesus saying apocalyptic things, Thomas and John, two saying Apocalyptic things attributed to Jesus, Matthew and Luke with Mark being an account that is just a copy at best and therefore not independent or simply an addition put in by Matthew which would make it three against the Apocalyptic Jesus and only two for it.
Obviously time lines for the actual writings of the Gospels are not easy to be certain about nor is the sequence that each writer drew from each other to form there own Gospel accounts, possible making there own additions to the sources they thought were necessary.
But I believe there is enough evidence to seriously question the apocalyptic overlays as being completely falsified most likely by Matthew. His obvious distortion of some of the original stand alone Teachings of Jesus to use as a Segway into Apocalyptic sayings attributed to Jesus is what I believe to be the most telling evidence of all that he was fabricating his apocalyptic agenda. Possibly with good intention to persuade the Jews to follow Jesus out of their dualistic God religion of War and Love.
The apocalyptic overlays are completely unnecessary to understand the Teachings of Jesus and implement them into your life and be transformed or Spiritually enlightened by them. Which it seems to me was the whole point of what Jesus was trying to do.
Christopher.
I agree with Robert. The earliest Christian texts are so imbued with apocalyptic thinking that it’s hard to imagine an earlier non-apocalyptic layer. And in the later writings of the NT we find a definite trajectory away from the apocalyptic viewpoint.
Behold! I show you a paradox. The more we are able to locate Jesus in his own time and place the more alien to us he becomes. To truly know him is to lose him. Hence these Ultimately anachronistic non-apocalyptic interpretations of Jesus that are efforts to make him more relatable to moderns.
Personally I would say the more you locate Jesus through understanding His core Spiritual Teachings on Love, Compassion, Forgiveness, Non-violence and Equanimity in order to awaken or arise into becoming enlightened the more we see Him as ourselves in the same battle. He truly becomes a great friend and Teacher reaching out to impact us over the years through His Spiritual Way of thinking and Living. Just as Buddha’s Teachings reach out to us over the years. The apocalyptic overlays are not from Jesus in my opinion but another source most likely Matthew.
They run parallel throughout the Gospels to His inner Spiritual development Teachings and are of no benefit in any way to His main core Teachings on Spiritual Love and inner awakening to a mind or Soul filled ‘with Light’ as He said. Also the evidence of Matthew clearly distorting some of the saying of Jesus I would say is self-evident that he was manipulating the Teachings of Jesus for his own Jewish interpretation agenda.
The one great fish saying in Thomas is the classic evidence when you see how Matthew distorted it but also his repositioning of the two in the field, two grinding at the millstone sayings to attach them to back up his his apocalyptic ramblings as if Jesus said them in the Segway context of Matthew.
I am afraid you will all have to convince me that these obvious distortions are unintentional.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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